1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to temporary flood walls. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method which utilizes a continuous line of interconnected bulk bags, each bag having sleeves that are fitted into each connecting bag wall. This sleeve allows a support frame to engage and support the bulk bags that are being filled, and after filling, the frame is disengaged and “leap frogs” along the entire length or chain of bags until all of the bulk bags in the chain are filled to define the continuous flood barrier wall.
2. General Background of the Invention
The art of building temporary flood walls is well known. The most commonly known method is to fill small bags full of sand and stack them up in a pyramid fashion to hold back flood waters. These small bags weighed between 50 and 100 pounds (between 22.68 and 45.36 kilograms). Building flood walls with this method involves a lot of labor and time.
It is also well known in the art that once flexible fabrics are formed into continuous cellular walls, and filled with sand and dirt, it forms a solid barrier against water. However, filling these flexible containers on banks along rivers and shore lines is not an easy task. The flexible walls must be properly supported until the containers are filled. One such method accomplishes this by using a large metal sled that supports each portion of the cellular wall as it is filled. The sled is then pulled along a horizontal line until it clears the filled cell and new unfilled cells are opened and supported under the sled waiting to be filled.
Existing methods support each cell's corner with a special plastic hangar that is not readily available and is therefore expensive. These plastic hangars can only be used a single time. As two hangars are used every two feet (0.61 meters) of the wall, the costs of these special parts add up over the course of each mile of wall that is placed. Further, with only the corners supported, there is noticeable sagging of the cellular walls as each cell is filled. This sagging creates uneven tensions on the four holders. The uneven tension can often overload individual hangars and cause them to fail during the movement of the sled.
The individual cells of the wall can be filled with up to 7,000 pounds (3,175 kilograms) of sand or dirt. After filling, the sled moves horizontally. The hangars must slide along metal rails until they clear the sled. Under this tremendous weight, these hangars can fail and cause the cells to drop from the sled prematurely.
Other methods involve simply piling truckloads of sand and dirt on top of levees. But while this method is fast, it is prone to washouts as the sand and dirt is uncontained against the flow of water.
Still another method uses open top bulk bags with wooden frames inside them which are bolted together in a cellular fashion to create vertical long walls that are then filled with sand and dirt. It is a fairly fast method for constructing walls but has the expense of the wood and is limited to vertical walls that can be pushed over by fast moving flood waters or collapsed from beneath as the flood waters hollow out the ground beneath them.
Still another method uses specially shaped bags that have triangular shaped sides. These bags are delivered using a large sled device that makes filling easier and faster than the methods listed above. However, this sled device relies on a bag support method that requires special parts to support each bag by its four corners that can be expensive and unreliable. Further the triangular shaped front of the containers are often unfilled due to its pointed toe. Due to the wave action of the flood waters, the sand and dirt can move after placement and cause some loss of control over its shape. And, just as the square bags can be hollowed out from below, so can this triangular faced design.
In short, each of the existing methods of flood control that utilize flexible materials still have shortcomings that need to be addressed.